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Nintendo DS to Launch November 21
mcc writes "PlanetGamecube is reporting the upcoming Nintendo DS handheld has been given a launch date of November 21st and a price of $150 ! It is also being reported that the Nintendo DS will ship with PictoChat (a sort of chat/whiteboard software) and some form of the Metroid Prime Hunters multiplayer FPS bundled in. A fact sheet is also available."
Anyone seen any reliable battery life figures for one of these?
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Nowadays, these things are fantastically cool, and I love them, but man, do I not need another video game platform. Now I drive myself places. My only video game time is at home, where I've got a 65" TV, a PC, and six different consoles. I want a GBA, I'm sure I'll want the DS, but I know I'd never play them.
It's really kind of depressing.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
If it supports a chat/whiteboard/etc. type app, will it eventually have a cellphone cartridge? That would be just sweet! MMORPG's with a phone, that's really a gameboy... much better than the ol' green screen tetris.
stuff |
Doomed like the Gameboy which DOMINATES the handheld market? I don't see a changing of the guard anytime soon.
And one screen is touch-sensitive; that could certainly lead to some novel applications--er, I meant games, of course ... :-)
... built-in WiFi ... tempting ...
I wonder if you can run Linux on it? It sports an ARM9 and an ARM7
All the games consoles getting prepared for christmas me thinks
But, the one place Big N has dominated has been handhelds... Let's see launch price of the PSP, but the DS looks like another home run!
'Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?'
Now I have to re-buy it. Curse them for improving it!
Who here wants to make a betting pool for how long until linux is hacked onto it?
The price is the right one, and the bunmdle is perfect!
Nintendo has played his cards very well this time.
Nintendo dominates the handheld market, and will probably continue to do so. And the handheld market is what this article is about.
Unlike the GBA, the nintendo DS doesn't allow you to play your favorite nintendo games from other consoles... no NES, no Super NES, no N64
Maybe it's just me, but I haven't seen the N64 -> GBA ports.
There's no reason they can't release NES or Super NES games for the DS, and I'm assuming they most likely will considering the huge profits they make on them.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
"But is it doomed much like Nintendo's previous hardware? PS/2 and XBox are royally kicking Nintendo's ass at the sport that Nintendo once ruled." Actually, XBox is losing to Nintendo. The GameCube sold more units and Nintendo raked in more profits than the XBox. But yeah, the PS2 is beating the GameCube and XBox put together. Not only that, but Nintendo still rules the handheld market. The GameBoy Advance SP is utterly unrivaled. And the only competitor to the Nintendo DS- the PSP- costs twice as much ($300), and requires you to buy the same games you might already have on playstation 2 on minidisks. I predict Nintendo will remain in dominance in the handheld market. " I, for one, still find the best games ever to be ones that came on the NES and SNES. Final Fantasy series up until 6 (3 in the US), etc. FF aside, Nintendo is still home to some of the best RPGs ever made. Lets hope the DS does the same." I expect it will. I hope we see a Zelda DS :)
What? That's not unlike the GBA at all. The GBA does not allow you to play any games from any other consoles except the earlier Gameboys. If you're thinking of the NES and SNES games you can buy for the GBA, those run natively - there's nothing to preclude the same sort of porting to the DS.
No, probably not.....Nintendo can re-release them in a "retro" gaming pack-
:)
Thus, it will not hurt them, but rather, pay off as people buy the gaming pack
Or you could be a l33t hax0r and boot an emulator onto the DS
-thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
What are you talking about? One of the demos at E3 was Super Mario 64 (with multiplayer abilities added, no less). Due to the success of the NES Classic Series, we're bound to see a lot of SNES ports on the DS as well, due to it's increased capabilities.
Wait until the homebrew scene gets a hold of it. In a short time you'll see NES/SNES emulators on it in addition to other emulators of the 16-bit era.
The system might get some N64 ports but it won't be powerful enough to emulate them directly (maybe some dynamic recompilation would do the trick however).
The GBA never had NES, SNES, N64 or Gamecube compatibility. But the GBA did have GB/GBC compatibility, and the DS will have GBA compatibility (at least). That built-in library, along with low cost and good battery life give Nintendo the same huge edge they enjoyed when the GBA first came out.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
That are from 30 to 100 feet away! Save the energy of actually looking at people, or raising your voice slightly.
Is there some aspect of the chat feature that I'm missing or not understanding? If you're playing a game with someone within 100 feet maximum, shouldn't you be able to see and/or holler (holla for all you kids) at them?
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
You mean like Gameboy Advanve and it's 90-something % share in the portable market?
I think nintendo should make a cartridge with emulations of a couple of those old multi screen game 'n' watch games they had. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's an example. You can see others on Gameandwatch.com, just click on "multiscreen" on the menu.
Hell, if they don't do it, I might just have to waste my time programming it myself once somebody gets together a free dev-kit for the DS.
Looks like I'll be getting one of these for my five-year-old after all. I had was going to get him an Advance SP because I figured these new ones would be way over my price range...but $150 isn't too bad! Now to wait for the reviews...
Indeed. They do rule the handheld market, but look at how well they held the console market in the 80's. Such is my point. I think it's only a matter of time until someone else comes along, and spanks Nintendo with a new handheld product. I didn't know that Gamecube sold more quantities than the xbox. I stand corrected
the GBA doesn't allow you to play your favorite nintendo games from other consoles either... just the ones that have been ported... and who's to say they won't port snes or n64 games to DS...
My sympathy goes out to you.
PS/2 and XBox are royally kicking Nintendo's ass at the sport that Nintendo once ruled.
If I had a nickel for every time i've heard this...Look up the sales figures.
The PS2 is slaughtering the other two, but in the US, figures put the GC and XBox running either neck-and-neck in 2nd place or with the GC slightly ahead. And that's to say nothing of Japan, where the GC is beating the XBox by something like 20:1 in total sales atm.
I didn't buy a GBA because it would just be too embarrassing to be seen playing games on it in public. The GBA-SP dramatically improved on the cool factor, this thing looked like it was born into the right decade.
Now the DS makes me think - oh look, a retro toy from the 80's. I know it'll have power and games and wifi and chat and probably a SETI client before long that can outperform my home machine, but it's waaaaay ugly and clunky for my likes.
Apple, please create a GBA clone.
It IS in the Games news.
Personally, the best thing I see here is that this might mean another drop in price on the GBA SP, which would be nice, since mine was recently damaged in a still-can't-beat-the-fucking-boss-related accident.
$150 US!
Yea, I'm definitly buying one. I guess my nephew will enjoy the GBA he will be getting from me.
This looks like a home run on Nintindo's part.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
Maybe... a lot of those games are available elsewhere now, however. FF Anthology & FF Chronicles available on the PS (and hence on the PS2 as well) give us access to FFIV, FFV, FFVI and Chrono Trigger. I also don't know how doomed its previous hardware is... the GBA is the dominating force of the handheld market. I guess we'll have to wait and see how Sony's PSP does, which I'm personally rooting for.
Of course I remember when the PlayStation was first announced and thinking to myself, "Sony? Sony doesn't make video games who are they trying to kid?"
Here's a page with some pictures of the DS, if you haven't seen it.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"the GBA doesn't allow you to play your favorite nintendo games from other consoles either"
Sure, with a big enough flash cart.
wow, nice timing, and for what it can do, nice price I think. This should be a winner, regardless, but with the new games and screen config, it really 'raises the bar' as those marketing types like to say. since GB has pretty much taken all of the handheld console market, DS will only build on that I suspect. when will they add a built in cell phone to it? That's when I'll be ponying up for one for sure!
CB*($#
free ipod and free gmail!
Bullshit. Many people have tried to enter the handheld market (at least 4 large companies have launched handhelds in the US that I can remember).
The reason Nintendo owns the handheld market right now is the same reason they ruled the console market until technology passed them by by a full generation - they are a game company, not a software company, not a video game company, not a consumer electronics company - they make games that hook kids like crack cocaine.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Well, they've already stated that Mario 64 will be ported, and from this article on the launch (lot more responsive than Smoking-Hulk-Of-PlanetGameCube), looks like GBA games will be compatible (although that goes against everything else I've read).
9 96.html
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/09/21/news_6107
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
in the game market, because the PSP, with it's higher price-point, and moving parts is not really something you're going to want to buy for a kid. The PSP is a portable home-entertainment-center for the idle-rich geek, and that's where it will find it's audience.
Nitendo knows kids, and knows kids games. I expect the DS will clean up there.
Disclaimer: I work for a DS developer...};^)
What were you expecting?
Profits. Nintendo is making boatloads of money with the Gamecube and the. Sony's making money, but their margins aren't so good. Microsoft, meanwhile, is consistently losing about a two hundred and fifty million dollars a quarter on the XBox venture.
Who's "winning"? Probably Sony, all things considered. But Nintendo's certainly not "losing".
...for your 5-yeat-old right?
My largest rant about games nowadays is that companies seem to spend so much time/money on graphics the contents is, well, lacking. This seems to be slowly changing of late. But, heh, I always get suckered into buying Nintendo stuff because I am a huge fan of the few genres that they have come up with. Zelda and Metroid, even with good graphics, still maintain good game content, and I still buy one after another.
To iterate is human; to recurse, divine!
Been on sell for a while now at Wal-Mart.com
Eat more bacon!
I remember they ran on like 2 AA batters, and only had about 10 levels per game. Those were the good old days. Forget all of that back lighting crap and swappable game cartridges. If you wanted to play a different game, fine..but you had to go buy a completely different handheld that only stored 1 game on it. There were no saves, you either beat the game or you start over.
I had sooooo many of those things, ninja gaiden 1 and 2, teenage mutant ninja turtles 1, 2 and 3, baseball, football, some sort of racing, excite bike.
Ahh, the memories.
I don't really envy todays kids anyways..at least WE had Saturday morning cartoons (the only thing better than saturday morning cartoons are Christmas and dodgeball..assuming you weren't one of the fat kids).
i like it.
You can preorder it now for 50$ more, and having to wait 9 days more to actually have it! sign me up!
As others have pointed out, nintendo is FAR from getting spanked in terms of actual sales in the market, especially in terms of handhelds.
While it might come as shocking, not all video gamers are rabid 20-something zealots who think the kiddie gamecube games aren't manly enough for their elite skills. Even more shocking... VIDEO GAME SYSTEMS TARGETTED AT CHILDREN STILL SELL. There is, in fact, a video game market outside of the "living in mom's basement" niche.
I don't know who are worse, xbox fanboys or playstation fanboys. The gamecube crowd seems to mostly shut up and just enjoy their games. Maybe because the gamecube crowd is mostly children who go to school all day instead of posting to seven hundred online message boards while "looking for a job" in the aforementioned basement.
My point: stop your silly video game prick waving. All three systems have good and bad games. All three systems aren't going anywhere. And all three systems are going to continue make a shitload more money than you're ever going to see.
From earlier this month: Running Ancient UNIX On Nintendo Gameboy
It seems rather odd to me that something by Nintendo would be released in the US first. Is this normal for their handheld systems?
Oh, other than the crappy Ngage? I guess you mean handhelds like Sega Gamegear, Atari Lynx, Neo Geo Pocket, Turbo Express? They all went up against the original monochrome Gameboy and failed. You'll soon be able to add the Sony PSP to that list.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Think again. I didn't see (for example) the Lynx, Game Gear, TurboExpress, WonderSwan, or N-Gage do too much damage to their market share.
i haven't noticed any mention of the DS being launched with different colors besides the platinum we've seen in all the demos. Has anyone seen details on what different colors, if any, Nintendo will launch with? A choice in color has been a popular feature of nintendo's handhelds since the Gameboy color, so I'd be surprised to see it missing from this system. The color choice must be a consideration when preordering, right? i'd hate to preorder, expecting a nice Platinum DS and find when I get there that all that's left is Pink or something like that...
Partially, though, that's because the 65" TV is rear projection, and doesn't work with the DC's light gun, or I'd play...er...that one game...Confidential Mission, or some such...
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
There's your problem... you lost much of your free time to commuting to work and watching Cable/Satellite/DVDs.
As for me, I have yet to buy a portable GameBoy, but with my 1 1/2 hour daily commute via passenger train, I may have the perfect excuse. (And business travellers who are frequent fliers also have the "free time" for portable systems.)
Those who complain about affect & effect on
Nintendo knows the handheld market, and they pulled this off perfectly.
$149 for the DS is sweet, condiering it has chat ablilities and a game demp packed in.
Pictochat actually has some little fun games built in as well
PSP what?!?!
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
Will the US DS play my PAL DS games? This is perfect for Christmas (for me) but other wise it may pass by (my birthday is Jan 31st is other option).
I can't live without my GBA but I don't want to buy the Gameboy V3.0 (which seems to be the selling point to most people) more then once or have to import everything to the sunshine island of England.
I like muppets.
Launch Date and MSRP: Nov. 21, 2004, in North America ($149.99), Dec. 2, 2004, in Japan (15,000 yen), Q1 2005 in Europe and Australia
Size (when closed): 148.7 millimeters (5.85 inches) wide, 84.7 millimeters (3.33 inches) long, 28.9 millimeters (1.13 inches) tall
Top Screen: A backlit, 3-inch, semitransparent reflective TFT color LCD with 256 x 192 pixel resolution and .24 mm dot pitch, capable of displaying 260,000 colors
Touch Screen: Same specs as top screen, but with a transparent analog touch screen
Wireless Communication: IEEE 802.11 and Nintendo's proprietary format; wireless range is 30 to 100 feet, depending on circumstances; multiple users can play multiplayer games using just one DS Game Card
Controls: Touch screen, embedded microphone for voice recognition, A/B/X/Y face buttons, plus control pad, L/R shoulder buttons, Start and Select buttons
Input/Output: Ports for both Nintendo DS Game Cards and Game Boy® Advance Game Paks, terminals for stereo headphones and microphone
Other features: Embedded PictoChat software that allows up to 16 users to chat at once, embedded real-time clock, date, time and alarm, touch-screen calibration
CPUs: One ARM9 and one ARM7
Sound: Stereo speakers providing virtual surround sound, depending on the software
Battery: Lithium ion battery delivering six to 10 hours of play on a four-hour charge, depending on use; power-saving sleep mode; AC adapter
Languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Italian
Color: Silver and black
The ds is a cool concept, but the handheld market really caters to kids. The gameboy advance, with a cheap price and cheap games will still be more popluar among kids because they are half the price. For christmas, console systems are the same price as the ds, and many kids(read: parents) will choose the $99 gamecube (with metroid prime, the FULL game), or $150 ps2/xbox over the ds. If your kid drops the ds, you're out $150. I hope this thing comes with a parent's guide because: -it has a touch lcd screen which kids seem to love to hammer on. -kids tend to want to use a regular writing device on a touch pad, like a pen or crayon. So its wireless. Can you not use them on planes? Now, if you can hack them, the possibilities are endless.
Is this device a successor to the GBA SP? I like the form factor (and price) of the SP a lot more (in fact I'm buying one very shortly).
..don't panic
SNK, Sega, NEC, and Game.COM called, they're all rolling in thier graves.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
He said 'price drop' because as of yesterday, Wal-mart EB, Gamestop and etc were showing it to be $200. The DS being $150 is a nice surprise.
Actually, the XNox is NOT kicking Nintendo's ass. The only place it outsells the Cube is in the US, and that's not by much. The Cube still leads the XBox worldwide.
But yes, the PS2 still trumps them both.
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
I don't think he's comparing the price of the DS and the gameboy.
Maybe he's comparing the price to the previously speculated price of the DS?
Gameboy != DS
What is largely relevant going to the handheld market from consoles is not really sales figures, but rather 3rd party support. Publishers have been dropping the GC like a bad habit, and they won't likely jump back on the Nintendo bandwagon until DS proves that it can move units.
The DS already has third party support. The number of people who've committed to the DS at this point, even with so little we know about the console or the public's reaction to it, is staggering.
Developers have been dropping the GC *as they pick up* the DS. What you have to understand is that Nintendo is #1 in developer mindshare in the handheld market at the same time it has negative developer mindshare in the console market. The console and handheld markets simply behave differently, what's true in one isn't true in another. Comparing the DS to the Gamecube is simply not a logical thing to do.
Second, once xmas comes and goes, and PSP comes out in spring, nintendo will have no flexibility in moving their price point to compete. They're betting the farm on massive early adoption. You read $150 and you can almost see the sweat on their brow.
$150 is pretty normal for a handheld launch price. I believe that's what the original Game Boy was released at. Meanwhile indications are the PSP will probably be more expensive than the DS-- at the very least, Sony does not have the degree of price flexibility Nintendo does just because they've opted to go with more expensive components. Also we can probably expect those confirmed-but-not-elaborated-on NDS multicolored cases to be released around March, I'd bet... Nintendo seems very, very clearly cognizant of the threat the PSP poses.
First, there are some nasty sharks in the water this xmas season in the console game market. San Andreas, Halo 2, GT4... While it's not direct competition, people only have so much time and money to spend, and DS isn't first on anyone's list (except the hard-core nintendrones).
So you're basically assuming that everyone will want to play the latest violent 3d shooter/adventure games, and leave the DS on the shelves? I think you may end up being suprised.
This kind of "OMG, Nintendo is doomed" stuff has been posted endlessly ever since the Cube came out, and it has yet to come true.
Oh, and if you're actually trying to be serious instead of trolling, drop the "nintendrones" comment.
Yeah, because the GBA hasn't outsold more units than the top two consoles combined..
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
I think sony has a real fighting chance. They have alot of good 3rd parties behind them. They dominate the console market for god's sake!
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
That's a neat idea.
The thing is though Nintendo's already released several of the single-screen G&W thingies as GB/GBC/GBA games as the Game and Watch Gallery series. So releasing the dual-screen G&W games for the DS would be a very natural thing to do...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
According to the press release, Nintendo already has over 100 third-party developers signed up to develop for the DS. Seems like that bandwagon is more enticing that you might think.
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
"I've got a 65" TV, a PC, and six different consoles. I want a GBA..."
You STILL haven't grown up yet! That's ok, I likes my toys too. (No, you can't have any of them - their MINE!)
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
f someone throws down in that ring, dont expect Nintendo to last
oh yeah, like the n-gage... that really was popular.
Kind of like the new N-gage2? still sucks compared to a GameBoy Advance.
i have most of the handheld games that tried to unseat the old Gameboy. they are all pitiful failures.
sony MIGHT have a chance if they make a ps-one compatable handheld device. make it larger with a cd drive and play the psone games and it has a chance of kicking nintendo's arse.
but they prefer to make a new platform that will require buying new games.... so we will see how the giant can try to unseat Nintendo.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And GB/GBC compatability has been confirmed. :) I think the first game i'll play is the old school pack-in tetris when I get my DS. :)
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
For that matter, just put the GBA pack in the DS. No need to redo the porting.
I'm off down the park to send some obscene messages to children.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin
And I just bought a brand new Game Boy SP to complement the new Pokemon Leaf Green and Fire Red games.
Oh well, just going to have to get the DS for Christmas. Although, it's going to have to have a really excellent killer app (like PictoChat) for me to grab one. Anyone have reviews on PictoChat?
This has been known, and confirmed, for quite some time though.
Anxious to get my hands on this new DS ; I really hope that the developers will use the double screen for better gameplay ; and not just gimmicky as i've seen it in the mayor titles (eg. being used as a radar/inventory screen) ; allthough Wario Ware showed some fun ways of using the stylus.
Also very cool to see they are including an MP title with it ; and the whiteboard functions could potentially rock.
Figures as of April last year stated the GC has something near a 7% Market-share in Australia, whereas the XBox is closer to 50% and the PS2 filling the rest. I haven't bothered checking the numbers again more recently but I'd imagine that they're still at around the same level.
% mkdir
% ls -dF
According to TFA (which I read long before this story was posted), the GB/GBC support has been officially dismissed. They said that the DS will only play GBA games and not even have multiplayer capabilities for those.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I tried out the DS at E3 this year and it was pretty freaking unreal. Metroid Hunters is a blast. I can't wait to try out more of their games.
Regards, Ian
i think madcatz makes a passable light gun taht can still be obtained at most gamestops. and usually cheaper than the japan only DC official.
Anyone feels the lack of an analog stick on the DS? Ok, we've got the touch-screen, but I don't know if I really feel much like playing all kind of games with a stylo!
Digital pad is ok with the GBA, where most games are still 2D, but today I feel an analog stick is due with 3D systems/games (PSP has it...)
I hope the buttons will be at least semi-analog like these on the Dual Shock 2, but I kind of doubt it..
/drools i cant wait. better games plus all my GBA goodness? yay! plus if the battery life is anything like the GBA SP it will be godly!
Matt
You have 1 Moderator Point! Use it or lose it! Is that a threat? -vapid
I'll wait until I have the thing in my grubby hands. At E3 GB/GBC support was confirmed. things change though, I guess. I hope it hasn't been disabled.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Eh, not necessarily. Don't count on a continued lack of copy protection in the new system.
Sega dominated the console market, and just couldn't pull it off in the handheld market. Heck, some people say their efforts with the Game Gear and Sega CD sank the Genesis and let the SNES win out in the long run. Sony's got a fragile design behind them right now. I don't think they're going to end up with a system that can withstand the punishment a GBA can withstand (and gets inflicted on it regularly). I don't think the PSP will do nearly as bad as the N-Gage did, but ten years from now, I expect we'll all be talking about it like we talk about the Game Gear now. It was around for a while, it was kinda cool, and the Gameboy is still going.
If Nintendo said that the DS will allow you to fly between countries, I would start making the paperwork to get a passport.
Unlike the TV-based consoles, all Nintendo handhelds have allowed you to pack your system, fly to another country, buy a game, and have it work. I would expect the DS to be region-free as well.
This is very easy to explain. The Game Boy and Game Boy Color used an ~4MHz 8-bit CPU similar to the Zilog Z80 (which was itself based on the Intel 8080). The Game Boy Advance uses a ~33MHz 32-bit ARM7 CPU. In order to make Game Boy backwards compatibility as fast, simple, and (yes) cheap as possible, it's got a second processor: a Z80. They can't be used at the same time, because they're for different architectures for different cartridges.
Since the DS uses a ~67MHz 32-bit ARM9, they either had to 1) have three processors in the thing, 2) abandon the legacy games, or 3) write emulation software into the console. $150 is already fairly expensive for a Nintendo device, portable or not, so they chose option 2. Accordint to the Wikipedia article, there are emulation projects for the ARM9 underway.
I think they just dropped the new ones to $80. You should be able to get a used one from ebgames or some other retailer for $50-60... that's not bad at all for what you are getting!
Is there a revolutionary idea that will justify the two screens? I don't think having the game's score/stats in a different screen or having two cameras available is revolutionary enough.
It's fairly common around here to see 20-30 year olds playing gameboys on various forms of public transportation. It's about the only time I ever get a chance to play it.
:P
Then.. theres also the bathroom..
I honestly just think it's been their price point, every competitor that tried to touch them came in with an overpriced platform that was vastly superior in nearly everyway but was totally impractically priced. Sony is going to pull the same thing with the PSP, but being Sony, they'll be able to keep the thing alive indefinitely (like minidisc) until it finally comes down in price enough to actually get people to buy it.
It will be interesting if the PSP is finally able to infilitrate the ranks of people too embarassed to buy a gameboy the way the playstation one hooked huge amounts of new customers. By making it more of a gadget, capable of playing movies and such, they stand a good chance to get those kinds of customers to rationalize the purchase..
Sure, the handheld market caters to kids. That's why the GBA-SP sells at a rate of about 2 units every minute.
Parents balking at $50 extra? You underestimate the number of upper-middle- and upper-class households. Remember, if you can convince 1% of everyone to buy your product, that's over 60,000,000 people worldwide.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
On both sides of the pond? The Genesis was a flop in Japan. They didnt' even try with the Game Gear in Japan either...
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
GameInformer? I thought they had cornered a nintendo QA guy who confirmed GB/GBC backwards compatability?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
But that's a different market. Nokia dominate the mobile phone market, and I think Nintendo have more to fear from them as far as the Gameboy goes. To my mind, N-Gage was crippled by the fact that it was a physical monstrosity that you couldn't imagine using as a phone. If Nokia can make N-Gage 2 into something more ergonomic - a phone that happens to play SNES-quality games, rather than an inferior Gameboy that happens to make phonecalls - they could really squeeze Nintendo.
After all, if I can play good games on my phone anyway, why would I buy an extra box to carry round?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
The DS plays all the games the GBA does
The DS does not play Four Swords, which took up three-fourths of the Link to the Past cartridge.
which includes the NES and SNES ports.
The DS does not play the NES ports that ended up on GBC instead of GBA, such as Super Mario Bros. DX.
in the US, figures put the GC and XBox running either neck-and-neck in 2nd place or with the GC slightly ahead
:D
:) All the stuff I linked to uses the standard NPD data, and it is available on plenty of other sites like Gamespot, etc. I am not going to spend several hours finding perfectly unbiased webpages just because you can't follow basic console news. ;p Or just post some Nintendo PR that states they are ahead with the Cube in the USA in the past year or so - I didn't find any at Nintendo's site, but it could very well be there.)
Hey, late-2002 called, they want their sales figures back.
Exact specific numbers are hard to come by nowadays (pay attention after the coming holidays!), but all sorts of info is out there showing the Xbox ahead. Gamecube hasn't outsold the Xbox in more than a year. Xbox in this period has even managed to outsell the PS2 in some months. Back in January 2003 the Xbox was already outselling the Gamecube 2 to 1. As of March the Xbox was only video game system to experience console unit growth in 2004 in the United States (it was only 2%, but the Gamecube was down 18%). In June 2004 the Xbox's total percentage of the US console market share was around 33% - with the PS2 in the lead by quite a large margin still, it is obvious that the Gamecube is not "neck-and-neck" with Xbox!
(And selling a whopping half million Gamecube consoles in Japan this year is not a good defense either, unless perhaps you live in Japan or only play Japanese-region games.)
And you know what? None of this console sales numbers garbage should matter! Console sales numbers have nothing to do with how fun its games are, so to defend Gamecube as still selling close to (or even above!) the Xbox in the US is just ridiculous. It is about the games! I mean christ, the original poster (now modded as flamebait) you are attacking was talking about how much they love Nintendo's games and hope they start selling better again - shouldn't you be agreeing instead of spewing old console sales myths?
It is especially silly with how cheap the consoles are now getting. A Gamecube is what, the price of two games? Most gamers in the US can afford at least two consoles now, and the current numbers of existing consoles is high enough to make a decent profit on any of the systems. You don't need to win market share at the expense of another console right now!
(And please don't complain about biased sources, though some of the PR does make me gag too.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
I'm worried that deathmatch might do bad things to the metroid franchise, but mario kart and tennis turned out okay, so I doubt they can mess it up to badly.
SAILING MISHAP
Imagine a beowulf cluster of DS's!
Wireless too!
Just back up one song from the album, and a text file that says "more shit like this". Think of the space you save -Mant
I'm gonna stick with fun games and excellent design over price (although that has always been very good). I owned a game gear and a turbo express, and tried out the n-gage for a bit. I own all 3 current console systems and a nice gaming PC - and my favorite gaming platform is the GBA, it is convenient, has fun games, a good battery life, and the case is sturdy and lightweight.
I'm a pretty extreme example I'm sure, but there is a lot of the market for which price is not the most important element and nintendo has nailed what is good in a mobile game player. The other systems would often have games with better graphics and tons of action, but who cares - it is a mobile with a screen the size of a postage stamp and controls that give you hand cramps if you try to play a game that requires too much button mashing.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Sony would have half a chance in hell, if they even remotely were going to release the PSP anytime soon. Instead, it'll cost at least $50 more than the DS and come out some time in February or March (missing the ever-so-critical holiday season). Even if Sony's bigger, even if they have more of the home console market, and even if they can pump money into the PSP until the cows come home, they're positioned horribly here and will suffer because of their launch date, price, and because the DS is compatable with the entire GB and GBA series of games. Also, parents will buy the DS for their kids for Christmas because they know that that's the system that will have the next Pokémon game. Regardless of which one you'll be fighting for, you've gotta see that Sony's got a couple of major obstacles to face in the PSP launch.
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I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Offtopic my ass. It's a thread about video games and the parent was talking about the number of systems he has hooked up to his tv and how he'd never use this thing. I was replying to a part of his post.
Would if have been more on-topic if I'd mentioned that my xbox also has a gameboy emulator, you crackheaded mod-nazis?
Oooo maybe this is both offtopic and flamebait, good thing I have karma to burn. Idiots.
wow... that was... uh.... spiteful.
Look, I won't tell you which systems I own, as it doesn't matter much, but let's just call a truce, m'kay? I've seen angry fanboy boasting from every side, and I think we need to all just sit back and chill.
That being said, I think that the DS is gonna beat out the PSP, mostly because there's already a large base of games, the DS will be first to launch, it'll cost less, and it'll come out before the holiday season (I believe the PSP is still slated for Winter 2005). That doesn't make it qualitatively better in any way, just more likely to sell.
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I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Microsoft themselves might be losing money on the system, but a whole lot of developers are making a killing from it. Microsoft never expected the system to make money within its first couple of years, and they have pretty much met their goals. Namely, they've established a serious market presense and obtained a wide base of developers.
One company might be posting losses on the system due to the R&D and setup costs of getting into the business, but they are going to make those losses back quite a few times, and in the meantime have made a boatload of money for their developers.
Sony had a much firmer base in home electronics before they created the playstation, hence they had significantly lower costs to get a toe in the door.
I suspect this will be a big win for Nintendo. It has the right features and the wireless ability sounds very innovative for a portable system. Personally I've found portable units nice even thou I own a PC and several console units. They're there when you want to play almost anywhere! (Washroom, Train, Bus, Subway) Compared to console and PC units which are fixed. Sadly, I find for a busy person like myself, I get more time into a GBA SP since it's always there compared to my PC or Consoles for gaming!
Based on most estimates it will cost at bare minimum $250. I'm guessing $300 or more though.
-matt
http://thewonderllama.com
*Throws his retarded PS2 with the broken CD reader into the lowest depths of the trash where it belongs, then goes and waits in front of Toys R Us*
Back to using a game system made by people who know how to make game systems.
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
It's not a bad price at all, but I've been hard on my GBA. This is the first SP I've killed, but I've only had it three months. I polished off two of the original version in under a year with simmilar acts of frustration. Either way, I'm going to wait until the DS is out before I replace my SP. I might safe a few more dollars, or I might even decide to step up to the DS, I never know. Worst case secnario, I spend the same amount of money I would right now.
PSP has the PlayStation brand. That's what'll guarantee its success.
Laf, you need to calm down and remember it's only a game! :) As something to keep in mind, it doesn't look like the DS will support GBA multiplayer features, so if you are having these fits while playing Mario Kart with your boss or something, you may want to grab another SP =P
Popular Science notes a thirty second charge time for a new type of battery (similar in capacity to Li-ion though).
-I am an elective eunuch.
*nod* That does sound damned cool -- wonder how they do it. Just broadcast the game over the wlan? Wonder if you can get roms with an appropriately placed laptop...
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
I seriously hope they don't. The last thing the industry needs is more developers shafted by a company who change their APIs without helping the developers adapt to the new APIs.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Hey, late-2002 called, they want their sales figures back. :D
:)
:)
;p
Uh...No? Assuming is a silly thing to do.
(And selling a whopping half million Gamecube consoles in Japan this year is not a good defense either, unless perhaps you live in Japan or only play Japanese-region games.)
And the XBox has sold only ~25,000. I would call that significant, unless you're claiming that Japan's sales doesn't matter, which is silly.
And you know what? None of this console sales numbers garbage should matter! Console sales numbers have nothing to do with how fun its games are, so to defend Gamecube as still selling close to (or even above!) the Xbox in the US is just ridiculous. It is about the games! I mean christ, the original poster (now modded as flamebait) you are attacking was talking about how much they love Nintendo's games and hope they start selling better again - shouldn't you be agreeing instead of spewing old console sales myths?
Maybe you should take your own advice.
It is especially silly with how cheap the consoles are now getting. A Gamecube is what, the price of two games? Most gamers in the US can afford at least two consoles now,
What's your point? I own a Cube, a PS2, and will probably buy an XBox sometime soon.
You don't need to win market share at the expense of another console right now!
Microsoft doesn't need anyone's help for that, recent reports have their XBox division not exactly making a profit. Not going to be healthy in the long run unless something changes.
(And please don't complain about biased sources, though some of the PR does make me gag too.
Easy to tell me not to complain when the biased sites support you, isn't it?
am not going to spend several hours finding perfectly unbiased webpages just because you can't follow basic console news.
Awww, poor you. Here, i'll help:
August NPD chart
July NPD chart
June NPD chart
I'm sure you can find more if you actually bother to look - that took me about 5 minutes with Google, and the figures below about 5 more with a calculator.
Looking at the August data, and excluding the GBA sales, approzimate figures are:
PS2: 58.6%
XBOX: 22.8%
GC: 18.5%
If you include the GBA:
PS2: 37.9%
GBA: 35.2%
XBOX:14.7%
GC: 11.9%
So, as I said, the XBox and GC are running quite close together, especially when you consider how much of a gap with the PS2 and GBA sales there is.
Perhaps I should have qualified my initial statement a bit better- the GC has been (at times) both neck-and-neck and slightly ahead of the XBox in monthly sales, and is still neck-and-neck with it in total sales.
If I was wrong, so be it, but there's the full data so you can look at it for yourself outside of a Microsoft press release.
Can you imagine how much fun the retirement homes of the future will be? we're talking XBOX 7s in every room, game cabinets in the halls, and interesting music playing throughout the place. Boy, I cant wait till my kids throw me in the old folks home...
Here's a bunch of links to the New York Times/ CNet, our games pages and the Walmart site which lists some differing information in a rejected post from VERY early this morning:
The following business reasons might explain why they are releasing the Nintedo DS in North America first:
Apologies for the cross-post but it seems relevant here.
From another reply to this post I gather that you meant the "voice chat mode". There isn't one yet.
The only announced chat mode is PictoChat, which is great for drawing and such. Here's the best part:
"And a Nintendo DS in sleep mode will spring to life if it senses another DS in transmitting range, alerting users to each other's presence and setting the stage for an impromptu conversation or game session."
I haven't seen this emphasized elsewhere in the discussion. You're on the bus, some kid turns on his DS, and yours alerts you that you can whip his ass in the bundled Metroid FPS if you feel like it.
For this, wireless chat is brilliant. You can holler at your kids, but will you holler at strangers in the mall? "DOES ANYONE HAVE A DS AND WANT TO PLAY A GAME?"
It creates a whole secret DS club you can join... a nerd's secret handshake. I'm for that!
You're quoting old facts,..... the Xbox is really starting to go places, Xbox live is well done, Microsoft or not, it's fucking great and you can mod the unit (as most know) and do a hell of a lot of shit with it.
If you're smart enough, you can have it mod'd and still use Xbox live too (mod off of course)
Yeah, and my GameCube rolled down the interstate and still worked. There are dozens of examples of Nintendo survivor stories ranging from a GB in Desert Storm, to games left out in the snow all winter, to a GBA dropped in the toilet, to the guys that hooked their GC to the back of a truck and dragged it down the road.
cycle rates are expressed using decimal prefixes, not the binary ones.
I used the binary prefixes because they are simpler in the case of the Game Boy systems, whose master clocks happen to run at a power of two times 1.00 Hz. If the clock speed of a system is specified as 16777216 Hz plus or minus n Hz, then it's easier to say 16 MiHz than 16.7, 16.8, or 16.78 MHz, no?
the DS is compatable with the entire GB and GBA series of games
Not quite correct on that point - the DS is only compatible with GBA games - it isn't compatible with GB and GBC games.
How about the Gizmondo (released by Tiger Telematics)?
;)
Sure it's not the same company, but hey... you've seen one tiger, you've seen them all right?
PDRoms also has some nice Game&Watch stuff (here's a list from the comp).
Failing that, go buy a DS and all the Game & Watch carts
But that's a bit of a logical fallacy is it not?
Maybe i'm also engaging in one too, but the way I see it, they atleast have a decent foothold with decent third party support as well as decent hardware, unlike SNK, Game.com and Bandai. Bandai did have a few good games and a killer app(FF1/2/3), but nothing that would be killer enough to take the GB empire down.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I went into EB for the first time in ages the other day and tried to order Tails of Phantasia. It wasn't in the system. None of the sales people had ever heard of it.
This could be why the Gamecube is failing is Oz.
Don't point that gun at him, he's an unpaid intern!
Will probably be a bit more... The DS will be 15,000 yen, which thus is less than half of the PSP. And that's totally awesome and I'm getting a DS in December. :)
Lalala
I can't believe someone is actually recommending a rerelease of an old title. Yeah, it's got the game 'n' watch's dual screens, but how bout some new games?
I'm getting pretty tired of Nintendo rereleases for the Gameboy. They've done the original Mario 1, 2, 3, Super Mario World, Yoshi's island, original Zelda, a slew of classic NES games like Balloon Fight, Ice Climbers, Excitebike (and more) etc.
They've just released a new pokemon, which is a remake of the original, which isn't even THAT old. The worse part is these games come out either full price, or at cheapest, $15, which is still way too much for a cartridge with just the old Excitebike on it.
I'd be one thing for them to release bundles, like a collection of original marios, a collection of NES. But no, all seperate.
I really like the GBA SP system, but I can't help but think they're milking the classics way too much, and wasting time that could be better spent on developing new titles.
According to the converter I use, 33,000 Japanese Yen = 300.985 US Dollar.
Sony announced that it's taking a loss even at that price, IIRC they were originally planning around 380 US Dollar (well, they announced 250 GBP in some slide, which converts to ~450 USD).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
You're quoting old facts
Sorry. As I said above, maybe I should have qualified my initial statement a bit more. At any rate, take a look at the NPD charts and decide for yourself.
Microsoft or not, it's fucking great
I'm not saying I agree with you, but where did I say it wasn't? All I was disputing was the original poster's assertion that the XBox is "royally kicking Nintendo's ass", which it's not. They are still quite close in terms of total sales.
you can mod the unit (as most know) and do a hell of a lot of shit with it.
If you're smart enough, you can have it mod'd and still use Xbox live too (mod off of course)
Uh, yes, this is pretty much common knowledge in geek circles by now.
I know what that works out in £ (UK Sterling Ponds), but have they actually announced the price for England?
Visit London Scalextric Club
You must not remember last Christmas very well. The gamecube sold a massive load of games between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that's not counting the fact that when Nintendo dropped the price to $99 last Sept/October, there was actually a month where the gamecube outsold the PS2 in the USA.
Now Microsoft can say all it wants about selling its systems faster than even God could do it, but I don't believe MS has ever beaten the PS2 at all in a month, unlike Nintendo.